Oakland University’s Student Program Board (SPB) wrapped up its annual GrizzHunt event, which began on Oct. 24 and ended on Halloween night.
The week-long event saw teams of up to 10 rushing to gain the most points for the grand prize — a $500 Amazon shopping spree. The 2nd and 3rd place teams also took home $400 and $300 respectively.
Every night at midnight, a list of challenges was released on the app GooseChase. Each task was assigned a point value. Some were worth as few as 100 points, while the largest of the week was worth 2,000.
Tasks ranged from simple trivia questions about OU, attendance at SPB events, and, as SPB treasurer Cameron Roach describes, “out there” challenges. Some included a photo in full scuba gear or tracking down a set of specific quarters from 2009.
“It definitely brings out the competitive sides of students, and that’s one of the reasons I’ve enjoyed planning it the most,” Roach said. “I find it fun trying to stump students or trying to give them difficult challenges and seeing the creative ways that students go about completing what we ask of them… I get a kick out of watching the competition as well.”
Additionally, this year saw the addition of a $200 prize for an individual winner.
“I wanted the event to be more inclusive to students who maybe didn’t have a 10-person, a five-person friend group that they could do this sort of thing with,” Roach said. “That went over really well.”
Overall, over 300 individuals and 130 teams participated in the event, translating to approximately 6,500 task submissions throughout the week. Of these teams, the aptly-named “did we win yet” took home the 1st-place prize — a stunning victory, considering the duo, made of Zachary Pedigo and Anna Schmidt, were against many teams of 10.
“I had heard of GrizzHunt last year, and I wasn’t really familiar with it,” Pedigo said. “This year, before it started, we saw a bunch of posters around campus… we were like, ‘Why not try and do this?’ Because it sounded like it would be fun.”
The two said they didn’t have any particular strategy other than to fit in the tasks whenever possible.
“We’re both just insane, and we’re super competitive, so whenever one of us had time, we would just do whatever little tasks we could,” Schmidt said. “I think I went to Salvation Army, like, 10 times within the last week looking for a mouse with a rollerball or like moon shoes or whatever.”
Although Schmidt and Pedigo are both enjoying their respective espresso machine and projector from the prize money, they also expressed how much they enjoyed participating for the sense of comradery it gave.
“Social anxiety just ceases to exist during GrizzHunt. The things we did I could never have pictured myself doing, but because neither of us wanted to let the other down, we were like, ‘Oh, we gotta do it. It is what it is,’” Schmidt said.
“It was super fun because we would also run into some other teams along the way… and you got to see what everybody would upload on the app,” Pedigo said. “We honestly met some pretty cool people.”
SPB has several events planned before the end of the semester aside from their weekly Hump Days on Wednesdays, including Retro Rewind on Nov. 9, the Back to the Blacktop Tailgate on Nov. 14 and OU Has Talent on Nov. 16. For more information and updates about SPB and its events, visit SPB’s Instagram.
